Marc Molinaro has been a congressman, a Republican nominee for governor of New York and, since last summer, the Senate-confirmed head of the multibillion-dollar federal agency supporting America’s public transportation systems.
Now, he is preparing to quit his influential perch in the Trump administration after just six months — to run for a backbench seat among the Republican minority in the New York State Assembly, according to four people directly familiar with his plans.
The potential move from a position that oversees a staff of more than 600 to an office with about six aides is highly unusual in the world of politics, where ambition typically leads in only one direction, up.
Prominent leaders on the right in New York said on Friday that they were baffled by the decision, which was first reported by Politico, particularly given the fact that Mr. Molinaro, 50, had graduated from the Assembly to higher office 15 years ago.
As administrator of the Federal Transit Administration since August, he controls billions of dollars in federal grants, which the agency has used as leverage to sway transit projects across the country. His influence is especially pronounced in New York City, by far the largest funding recipient, where he has opposed a new congestion pricing plan.
“His job, in my view, is right below the cabinet,” said Gerard Kassar, the chairman of the New York Conservative Party. “Yeah, it’s funny. I don’t get it. I think other people don’t get it either.”
Mr. Molinaro did not respond to several requests for comment. Neither did a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, of which the F.T.A. is a part.
People familiar with Mr. Molinaro’s thinking said that his reasons for leaving the Trump administration were mostly personal. After a lifetime in elected office, he missed having his own constituency. They also said the commute from his home in the Hudson Valley to Washington had been difficult for his family, which includes young children and an older daughter with autism.
They stressed that Mr. Molinaro, who had been a relative moderate during his one term in Congress, was not leaving because of disagreements with President Trump or his administration.
The people in question were not authorized to speak publicly about Mr. Molinaro’s plans because he remained a federal employee, subject to Hatch Act restrictions on partisan political activity. One of the people said that Mr. Molinaro intended to resign from the F.T.A. next week.
Mr. Molinaro is not the only New York Republican considering leaving the administration to try to make an electoral comeback this year. Anthony D’Esposito, the inspector general at the Department of Labor, is expected to decide in the coming days whether to run for his former House seat on Long Island in hopes of unseating Representative Laura Gillen, a first-term Democrat.
Mr. Molinaro does not plan to run for his old House seat upstate. Republicans privately say their chances of defeating Representative Josh Riley, a Democrat, there in a midterm year are low.
Mr. Molinaro had briefly considered running instead for a neighboring House seat that is considered more safely Republican and is represented by Representative Elise Stefanik, who is retiring.
He met with the White House’s political team, seeking Mr. Trump’s blessing to try to help clear the field of other candidates, but no public endorsement was forthcoming, according to two of the people who spoke with The New York Times.
Mr. Molinaro was first elected to office at age 18 in Tivoli, N.Y., and spent more than a decade as a county executive between his stints in the Assembly and in the House of Representatives. After Mr. Molinaro lost his re-election bid to the House in 2024, Mr. Trump offered him the F.T.A. post.
Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government.
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